Warmth
by NovaJane
Summary: For Astrid, sleep was hard to come by ever since Hiccup took the top spot away from her in Dragon Training.


**Disclaimer**: Not mine.

**AN**: I've been lurking in a few discussions around the internet about Astrid's abrupt change in her feelings towards Hiccup after she flew with him, and was inspired to write this.

**Warmth**

Sleep had been hard to come by lately.

Astrid paced the room, snarling and scowling like a caged Nadder, occasionally pausing to straighten a shield that was hung on a wall, or stir the wood burning in the fire pit. Physically she was beyond exhausted, Mentally, even more so. Her hands were calloused and blistered. Every muscle in her body ached in protest to the rigorous training to which she had subjected herself those past few weeks, but she would not dare to sleep. She just knew that the moment her body would begin to rest, her mind would take off, doubting her skill, questioning her dedication to the training, trying to come up with some reason, any reason to make sense of the fact that she was fading fast in training, her once-assured spot as number one student being wrenched from her grasp by...

_ARGH! WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE HIM?_

Had it been anybody else she could deal. Of course she would still be bitterly disappointed in herself but she could get over it. With the others, she could justify her loss. The situation was entirely different with him. He was a scrawny, bumbling, overcompensating dork with Daddy issues. How was it even remotely possible that he had somehow managed to become the village superstar and current front runner to finish number one in their class? This was supposed to be her moment. She had been training for this moment all her life! Even in her worst nightmares, she could have never imagined that it would end this way. It wasn't supposed to be like this. Why would anybody think that he had any chance of even scratching much less killing a...

_THAT'S IT!_

Clearly the dragons were colluding to make sure that the easy target got picked, so they could watch and laugh as the Nightmare inevitably tore the Chief's kid a new one in front of the entire village. It made perfect sense!

And yet she did not believe a word of it. No. Hiccup was up to something and she was going to find out what it was.

Oh yes, she would find out what was going on and expose him. It wasn't over yet. Victory was still within reach.

"Astrid, are you still up? Who are you talking to down there?"

Wonderful. Apparently she had been talking to herself again, a behavior that was not an unusual occurrence those days.

Astrid groaned. "Sorry, Grandma, I didn't mean to wake you."

"What's wrong, Child? You keep scrunching your brow like that and it'll stick like that permanently. Not a good look for someone as pretty such as yourself."

_Pretty_. Prettiness does not help subdue dragons, and therefore was a concept beyond useless to her. "It's nothing." Astrid said with a shake of her head and a wave of her hand, dismissing her grandmother's concerns.

"Oh, you're a terrible liar. Worse than your mother! Come here." The old woman hobbled down the stairs with the assistance of a cane and sat down on a chair near the hearth. "Come on, now." She tapped her leg with a mottled, arthritic hand - beckoning the brooding teenager over.

Astrid sighed. "I am s_oo glad that Mom and Dad aren't home to see this_." She thought as she walked over to her grandmother and sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the old woman, facing the fire pit. She felt her hair being unbound by familiar hands and fingers running through her hair to free it from the tight plait that kept it bound all day. Astrid leaned back into the touch, pressing her back against those familiar legs as she had done many times before as a child.

It had been a long time since her Grandmother did that for her, she realized. Maybe ten years or so? She tried to remember, but those nimble hands deftly working through her scalp quickly swept away any and all thoughts. She sighed again, this time contently. Astrid would never admit it, but it was always nice being taken care of, even though she wasn't a little girl anymore. It was nice to just push aside the whole tough girl act and just sit there and allow herself to be cared for and pampered.

Two fingers of each hand pressed against a temple and applied just the perfect amount of pressure. "I've never seen you wound up this tightly before. It doesn't have anything to do with a boy, does it?" She leaned over and whispered in her ear, despite the fact that they were the only two people in the house.

Astrid rolled her eyes. Everything had to do with boys to that woman.

"No, Grandma. Nothing in my life ever has anything to do with boys." Astrid laughed bitterly. "And I guarantee you right now that you'll never see me act like this over a boy." Surprisingly strong fingers began to massage the base of her neck. "_Oh yes, right there!_" Astrid said wordlessly. She wanted to give voice to her approval, but couldn't bring herself to expose yet another layer of vulnerability. Just sitting there, basking in the lovely warmth of the fire pit while at the mercy of her grandmother's hands was bad enough on her already bruised ego.

"Good girl. Oh your hair is so beautiful... The boys must be tripping over themselves to get a chance at you."

Boys again. How her grandmother survived and thrived among the rest of their tribe – a tribe consisting of men and well... taller, more hirsute men - Astrid would never understand. "I don't really care." She said plainly. It was the truth.

Her grandmother was a deviation from all of the other women in her family. She was a Lady in every sense of the word - a complete romantic. Lucky for Astrid, as that woman was instrumental in naming her, otherwise she would have been saddled with one of the ridiculous names that most of the kids from her generation were getting.

"Why don't you care? A girl your age should have already have found a sweetheart, no?"

"Well, I'm weird, I guess." _Just like him. ARGH! NO! Do not think about him! Just concentrate on those fingers combing through you hair, and making you surprisingly sleepy mentally. _Those hands were wonderfully warm. Her grandmother was always physically warm like that. That was probably the one trait of hers that she would never forget.

"You're not weird, you're just your mother's daughter, that's all."

"It's just that I'm too busy with training to care about boys right now, Grandma."

"Ugh, dreadful things, those dragons." The old woman said, tracing a finger across the faint, jagged scars running in criss-cross patterns across Astrid's upper arm. The girl glanced over to watch her first battle scar – her pride and joy - being acknowledged and smiled. The old woman then took Astrid's hand into her own and gently ran her fingers across the raw, red blisters on the palm of her hand. "And they're starting you out so early these days." She said sadly before promptly changing the subject. "Well, that's okay. You have plenty of time. And don't you dare settle for just anybody either! We're from a long-lived stock, you have decades to find a man worthy of your heart."

"Worthy of my heart. Okay." Astrid said in a sarcastic mumble. Her eyes were beginning to hurt from rolling them so much.

"He's out there looking for you as well. You just have to look harder."

"In this village? Yeah right." Astrid noticed that the fingers tangling themselves in her hair were becoming more heated. Her grandmother's voice became strained and raspier the longer she kept talking.

"Just keep your eyes open for the one who completes you. I think... That's it! Your eyes!"

"What about my eyes?"

"They are like the sky, but incomplete."

"So I just have to find a guy who completes my eyes. Okay then."

"Child, the sky isn't complete without a cloud or two, right?"

Astrid sighed. She gave up. It was late, she was losing her mind anyway, and there was nobody around who could hear any of this conversation and hold it against her. She had already indulged her grandmother in her banal boy talk, so why not play along and yield a bit further? "Clouds, huh? Yeah, I can work with that." She smiled. "I think, my true love would build a mountain greater than any we have ever seen, so tall that it's like a giant spear piercing the sky. He would then climb it, and fetch me a piece of a cloud to complete my eyes. Just a tiny wisp."

"That would be lovely, I think."

Astrid most certainly did not share her grandmother's passion for everything that was all sunshine and flowers in the world, and she was pretty sure she did not believe in her 'true love' business, but she had to admit, the old woman's encouragement to get her into playing along with her fairy tale-like musings were a nice antidote to her foul mood. Astrid looked at the palm of her hand, all sore and scabbed up from the abuse to which she had subjected it those past few weeks, and for a moment, she stopped thinking about training and class and her battered and exhausted body.

For a moment, she wondered what a wisp of cloud running through her fingers would feel like.

"And what if he takes too long to show up and build me that mountain?" Astrid asked, the realist creeping forward.

"Then you find a wonderful man from a strong warrior stock who would give you many years of warmth and happiness, but you keep that precious heart to yourself. " Her grandmother said with a cough. Astrid began to worry. Clearly, the old woman was in poor health that evening and was only getting worse because she was being kept up because of her stupid teenage angst nonsense. "Because your heart is meant for someone else." She stopped her massage and rested her hands on Astrid's shoulders.

"You know, I think I like that second option better. I just know that I'll be disappointed some day, and if I have to be disappointed, I'd rather it be aimed towards my consolation prize than my perfect match."

The old woman laughed. "Can't bring myself to argue with you there."

"I should be off to bed. Thank you, Grandma, for sitting here with me."

"No, Child, thank you for indulging an old woman's silliness. It's been so long since I've had a chance to talk to you or your mother like this. I miss it sometimes, you know?" She said, practically wheezing as her voice began to fade fast.

"Yeah, Grandma. I miss it too." A long time had passed since they had spoken like that. Way too long.

Astrid stood up and stretched her arms. The neck massage had melted away all of the tension in her back. She felt more relaxed than she had in months. "You should go to bed too."

The old woman shook her head. "I think I'll sit out here for a bit. I've been asleep for long enough tonight." The old woman smiled at Astrid and winked, her pale blue eyes looking sunken in the dim orange light that blanketed the room. "And, stop furrowing that brow already. Those hideous scars are bad enough, and now you want wrinkles to match? You have plenty of years to etch them on that smooth skin of yours, it would do you well to wait a while before starting." The old woman reached out and took Astrid's hands into her own held them firmly. Feeling those hands in her own confirmed what she suspected. The old woman was not well at all.

"I..." Astrid began to speak but couldn't continue. The hands that held her own were not warm as she originally thought. They were uncomfortably teetering on hot and clammy. Were they like this the entire night? She wondered.

Those were the hands of one with a horrible illness - like the time that old woman fell sick with an infection.

That was about ten years ago. Astrid remembered it all clearly. How she had fallen ill suddenly -

And died within two days.

Astrid's eyes snapped open. She gasped, her voice caught in her throat. She was in her bed. There was nobody there but her. A dream, just a silly, weird little dream, she realized.

Yawning, she rolled over onto her side, groaning as her pitifully sore back protested the shift in her weight.

She had more training lined up in the morning.

"_Boys..._" she mumbled derisively before falling back asleep.


End file.
